The Privateersman (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

balding, lean and slightly bent over; his back ached and he
moaned that it was crippling him; he had a very short temper, it was said, with
drink in him could explode in anger, blade or bottle in his fist, whatever was
close to hand. He was thought to be a Scot who had come south years before; he
had little of the accent of the far north, sounded to Tom very much the local
man – perhaps he had been brought to England by his parents as a small child.
    Dick Smithers was a big, fair Dorset man, much like
Tom in appearance and perhaps ten years older, and deeply, fundamentally
stupid. He had been a farmhand for years, had had to leave his village near
Blandford a few days previously; he had not chosen to say why.
    Luke Mundy was from Hampshire, a flash, good-looking
young man, forever combing his jet-black hair, always clean-shaven and with a
ready smile to show off his white teeth and sparkling blue eyes. He made no
secret of the fact that he came from a little village near Southampton, Durley
its name, and that he had had to run like hell for getting a leg over the
squire’s daughter – very frequently, he claimed – and putting her in the family
way; they would have called it rape, to save her name, and stretched his neck
for his pains, he said, laughing mightily. He did not think he would go home
again.
    “What about you, nipper? Where’s home for you, Tom?”
    “Towards Bridport, Luke. I don’t reckon I’ll be
going home no more, neither. Mum’s dead these ten years and Excisemen put a
pistol ball in Dad’s chest last week.”
    “I heard about that,” Smith interrupted. “There was
a big fight when they jumped a set of smugglers, Excise and dragoons both. They
said a man grabbed a sabre and laid about him, killed three of them with it, a
really big bloke. Half a dozen of them got away but they chased down four who
had taken pack-horses and tried to run on them. They didn’t catch the big
bloke, though.”
    “So I heard,” Tom said.
    They had all noticed the fading bruises he carried,
chose to say no more.
     
    They closed the French coast, somewhere off
Brittany, Tom understood, although as he wasn’t entirely certain where Brittany
was, this helped him very little. They worked their way south through empty
waters, not so much as a fishing boat in sight. Smith decided, belatedly, that
he should make sure his boarders knew what they were about – he was not used to
taking command, still wanted an officer to give him the initial order.
    The Coles brothers had sailed with him twice before
and sat back and watched the exercise. Neither Dick nor Luke had handled a
pistol, but both knew how to load a scatter gun and quickly mastered the
essentially similar smaller weapon; accuracy was of little concern, all they
needed do was point and pull the trigger as they would never be more than the
width of a deck from their target. Tom took his pistol, loaded quickly and
expertly, hardly looking at what he was doing, and took a snap shot at a gull
flying ten yards off their quarter, reducing it to a heap of bloody feathers on
the waves.
    “Christ, nipper! Just ‘ow did you do that?”
    “Dunno, Luke. I could do that first time I ever
picked one up. Dad had a pair on the boat, just in case of trouble, he always
said – the Channel’s full of Frogs and you never know… So long as I can see it,
I can hit it.”
    “What about with a musket, Tom?” Smith asked.
    “No good at all, sir,” Tom replied. “It’s all I can
do to hit a barn door at twenty paces with a long gun.”
    They laughed and shook their heads, said they had
all heard of stranger things, but not many.
    Smith ferreted about in their little armoury, came
up with a wide leather belt with a diagonal bandolier attached, passed it
across to Tom with instructions to put it on, right shoulder to left hip. Half
an hour’s fiddling fixed six holsters, one to each hip on the belt and four to
the bandolier across his chest, one left and three to the right.